#foodknowhow

[gnh-stephanieharfield-blog]

The 'Food Know How' story

Have a look at this video to learn more about the Food Know How Program!

[gnh-stephanieharfield-blog]

A typical day at the office

A typical day starts usually at 9 am. Once I get to the office, I'll find myself a desk. 

Most staff are employed part-time and only work a few days a week, so there are different people in the office everyday. Currently, there are also three other interns - two from Melbourne and one from the US,  which is great, because we frequently get to go out on 'field trips' together. 

The first thing I do when I logged onto my computer, is checking my emails. I am currently working on a leftover recipe competition, where people send their leftover creations to me via email. I collect the recipes for further evaluation and combine them in a 'booklet', which will be sent out to all FoodKnowHow participants once the competition is over. 

The office

Me in the office :)

On Wednesdays we have our team meeting, which is a great opportunity to catch up with the others and see how we are all going with our work. We usually come up with some new tasks that have to be done to engage more households or cafes in the program.  

Apart from doing the leftover recipe competition, I am working closely together with Jodi, to come up with new idea/initiatives to engage more households in the program, but also to keep current participants 'entertained' and up to date with the latest FKH news. I also update FKH's Facebook page and website and help out with little admin tasks here and there. 

My main project during my internship is writing a literature review about community composting in Australia. As part of this task, I am doing an audit of local laws and guidelines to identify potential barriers that make the set up of a community composting hub difficult. I contact councils, who have previously set up CC, to gain an idea of what is involved in the process and how the outcomes affected further CC projects. 

This is a fantastic opportunity to improve my research skills while working on a 'real-world' project.

Front of the office

During my internship, I am trying to participate in as many activities as I can. I use any opportunity I get to leave the office and get involved in some outdoor work. So far, I have been able to join in community garden activities, visit participating cafe's and I also take part in an after school kitchen program with primary school kids every Wednesday afternoon.

Tomorrow, the US intern Mary and I will join a waste audit done by one of the city councils, in order to identify current waste practices, in particular the amount of food (scraps) being thrown out, and how they can be improved. I am glad, that I get the chance to be involved in so many different activities and that no day is the same.